


Finding Drift (In All the Wrong Places)

by not_whelmed_yet



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Crack, Drama, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Outer Space, Shorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-09 13:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12277110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_whelmed_yet/pseuds/not_whelmed_yet
Summary: What If...EOS didn't happen? Instead, Ratchet searches the galaxy and finds Drift somewhere absurd, doing something ridiculous. Various scenarios, some fun, some soft, some funny etc.this time: Drift becomes a tribble salesman





	1. Jellyfish Aliens

**Author's Note:**

> I started working on this with the thought of posting short ficlets throughout LostLightFest, which...didn't really happen. Perhaps after I'm done Observing Drift I'll have time to play with this again.

"Stop this wedding!" Ratchet boomed as he smashed through the trailing trains of beaded curtains that led to the bridal chamber. Thirty giant, wobbly, squishy looking aliens turned to look at him. Their transparent insides revealed sparkles and glitter and little seashells they'd absorbed in order to give the occasion a festive air. Ratchet didn't give a frag about any of that. He cared about Drift.

The bot in question was down in the center of the bridal chamber, next to the Empress of the squish-squish aliens. He was half-sitting, half-laying on a transparent beanbag chair beside Her Squishiness, head lolling to the side. When he caught sight of Ratchet, his face broke into a huge grin. "Thas my friend," he slurred, wobbling a hand towards Ratchet. "Hey, Ratchet. Yer here. Cool."

"On what grounds do you _invade_ our private ceremony?" One of the jellyfish aliens asked Ratchet. His hands itched to go for his blaster, but it'd be rude to just splat the lot of them on sight.

"Well, for one thing, your 'royal consort' over there is definitely high," Ratchet said. "Did you know the electrical impulses given off by your tendrils have a psychotropic effect on Cybertronians? Nah, probably not. Your brains are barely bigger than an Earth jellyfish's. Whatever Drift has said to you, that's not binding."

"But he's the foretold one!" One of the squishies cried out from the back. "The one of metal and harsh edges who would come from the sky and protect us against the Qrackens!"

"He crashed his shuttle and you drugged him and took him hostage. I'm not sure the Qrackens are your biggest concern right now," Ratchet said, pushing through the crowd to get to Drift. He could feel their stupid electrical tendrils brushing up against him, but he'd come prepared, since he wasn't an utter slag-head. Non-conductive jelly coating the entire outside of his frame. Felt weird as hell, but stopped you from being mind-whammied by jellyfish aliens. He waved off the Empress with a disdainful hand and knelt by Drift's side. Spark was pulsing way too fast, optics half-dimmed. _Rossum's sparkplug, how long had they had Drift dosed up in here?_

"But I love him," the Empress cried. "I have the right to marry him!"

"You know, I came in here considering the possibility in just blowing a hole in each and every one of you creeps," Ratchet said, feeling for a fuel line to inject the synthazine booster. "But I'm going to give you a choice. Either let me walk out of here with Drift or enjoy becoming a pile of boneless puddles on the floor."

The Empress shaded orange, pigment flooding his upper float-pouch. "He said his people had exiled him and that he had no further purpose there. Who are you?"

"Me?" Ratchet said, hoisting Drift up in his arms. "I'm his friend."

 

* * *

 

"Ratchet?" Drift asked hazily. Ratched checked over his shoulder. Sure enough, that fragged fool was trying to get up out of the berth.

"I'm coming. Don't get up, kid. You're just coming down off a bad trip." He got up from the pilot's seat and hurried over to him, snapping his mediviewer open as he went. Spark settling, but the withdrawal pangs would be starting up soon enough if Ratchet couldn't get him to go under for a few more days.

"I had the weirdest dream," Drift said. "I was stranded on this...water world. And then these squishy aliens tried to make me marry them?"

"Really? That's a very strange dream, Drift," Ratchet said, deadpan. He plugged into Drift's medical port, trying to figure out how much of the withdrawal systems he could shunt off without leaving Drift with no sensornet at all.

"And then you showed up, but they wouldn't let us leave. So you claimed that I _couldn't_ marry the aliens. Because I was already married."

"Wow, that is a plot twist right out of a sparkling's storybook," Ratchet said. "I never have very interesting dreams. On the other hand, I also don't do psychotropic drugs. There may be a connection there."

"And you said I was married to _you_ ," Drift said, beaming. "And you picked me up and walked me out of there and all the aliens were scandalized. 'Cuz for them, touching hands is a very _sensual_ experience. Well, tentacles, not hands. But they figured hands were analogous. But you were really only telling me I was stupid in Hand."

"Well, that was definitely all one hundred percent definitely all a dream," Ratchet said. "You did crash your shuttle, though. And then I think somebody found you in the wreckage and drugged you. No jellyfish people involved."

"Oh, well, that would have been weird," Drift said. He frowned, brow furrowing adorably as he stared at Ratchet. "So why are you covered in slime?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! This wasn't edited, so if you saw a mistake feel free to let me know. I'm over on tumblr at [ notwhelmedyet](http://notwhelmedyet.tumblr.com/).


	2. Drift adopts an old terraforming robot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a repost of an old ficlet, not from LLF

The door opened before Ratchet could even knock.

Drift stood there, smiling. “Oh good, you’re finally here. I was worried you’d be too late.” He turned and walked down the hallway. His paint was chipping off and his knees made a creaking sound that Ratchet could have ID'ed at thirty yards as a lack of joint maintenance.

Frowning, Ratchet hurried to catch up. “What do you mean ‘finally here’?” He said.

“I had a dream you’d get here in time,” Drift said. “You have your medical supplies, right?”

“Some of it,” Ratchet said. “Some is still out on the ship.”

Drift rounded the corner into the cargo bay of his crashed shuttle. It was…different. Drift had set up a berth in the center, with what looked like a hodge-podged life support machine next to it. He’d dragged a chair out of the flight deck and set it on the other side of the berth. And the ceiling…the ceiling of the cargo bay was fairly low, short enough that Ratchet could touch it. And Drift had covered the entire thing in paint. At first Ratchet thought it was a starscape, but then he picked out what were clearly dramatizations of Primus, Epistemus and Solomus and realized it was a creation myth, drawn out.

“Ratchet!” Drift said, kneeling by the berth. “Come on, he needs you.”

Ratchet dragged himself over to the berth and realized that it wasn’t empty, as he’d assumed. There was a very tiny robot laying on the berth. Maybe half the size of Rewind. It was hooked into the life support machine, but it’s eyes were dark and it didn’t move.

“What is this?” Ratchet said, moving to the seat and opening his hip case to get his supplies out.

“His name is Samson,” Drift said. “The colonists that used to live here, they built Samson for the terraforming project. And then, when they abandoned the planet, they left him here. I found him after I crashed and I’ve been trying to keep him alive.”

“Do you know what the problem is?” Ratchet asked.

“It’s his hands. Samson is _old_ for a terraforming bot. His hands rusted and froze up a few centuries back and now that rust’s spread to his internals.”

Ratchet picked up a tiny hand in his and examined it. “How do you know all that? He’s offline.”

“Not all the time. We did a direct data link up when I first found him. Ever since then I’ve been keeping him alive with activated energon injections, but he’s fading. Fix him?”

Ratchet sighed. “I’ll try. He’s not Cybertronian, though. There’s no promises that our medical fixes will be compatible.”

 

* * *

 

Ratchet set the shuttle to autopilot and snuck a glance over at Drift. He’d conked out soon after takeoff, arms wrapped protectively around Samson, who was also asleep. He’d sleep a lot in the weeks to come - it took a long time to reintegrate a frame that was mostly new parts.

_“You know,” he’d said to Drift, “I’d imagined you’d be out questing. Stabbing villains and getting yourself in trouble.”_

_“And instead?” Drift had said with a smile._

_“Instead I find you’ve adopted a geriatric terraforming droid. It’s unexpected, is all.”_

_“I’d planned on doing that,” Drift said. “The first thing, I mean. Questing. But then I found someone who needed me and I couldn’t just leave him behind.”_

_“So what was the art for?” Ratchet asked._

_Drift looked off into the distance. “He was scared of dying. So I was explaining the Afterspark to him.”_

_“But Samson isn’t Cybertronian. He wouldn’t go to the Afterspark, right? Not even in,” Ratchet wiggled his hand, “Spectralist teachings.”_

_“He was scared,” Drift said. “Sometimes you do what you can. I know you disapprove.”_

_“You know a lot of things about me, Drift. Only some of them are true,” Ratchet had said._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! This wasn't edited, so if you saw a mistake feel free to let me know. I'm over on tumblr at [ notwhelmedyet](http://notwhelmedyet.tumblr.com/).


	3. Drift becomes a tribble salesman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For LLF day 4, theme 'pets'
> 
> :)
> 
> [random video with tribble sound effects, if perchance you don't know what they're supposed to sound/look like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXwHt8dbcvc)

"Hey, little kid," Ratchet said, waving his arm to get their attention. The tiny orange organic peered up at him and Ratchet dropped to one knee, holding out his Drift figurine. "Have you seen this robot? He's my buddy and I'm looking for him."

The kid grinned, exposing both rows of teeth. "That's the floof salesbot!" He said.

"The what now?" Ratchet said.

"He's the one that sells the floofs," the kid explained, not actually explaining anything. "My mums bought me Eicht, Eiger and Eilen from him. Those are my floofs. Eicht is the biggest, he's got a mottled coat and he's really cuddly. Eiger is kinda shy, but he gets along really well with-"

"Look," Ratched said. "I'm sure that's lovely. But could you maybe skip ahead to the part where you tell me where Drift is?"

The kid was willing to go one better, as it turned out. As long as Ratchet was willing to let him blabber on about the interpersonal dynamic of his mysterious 'floofs', he was willing to show Ratchet to Drift's shuttle. Ratchet did check to make sure the kids mums would be okay with them wandering around with a stranger and had to be reminded that Enoneichts were familially telepathic. _So sue me, I haven't kept a complete record of all the weird shit you aliens can do._

Abandoned at the door of Drift's shuttle, Ratchet tried hailing Drift over comms and got nothing. There was a doorbell on the main cargo hatch along with a list of 'business hours', but nobody answered when he hammered on that either. Feeling a trifle impatient, Ratchet checked if the shuttle was still answering to the Lost Light command structure. Sure enough, the chief medical officer's codeprint got the door open.

The cargo bay was empty. There was an all encompassing vibrating sound thrumming throughout the ship, which increased in volume as Ratchet neared the living quarters.

"Drift?" He called. "It's Ratchet. Are you in there?"

No response, but the vibrations were so strong that Ratchet could feel them from the other side of the door. Whatever was happening in there, Drift might be in trouble. Ratchet unholstered his blaster, took a firing stance and keyed the door open.

A wave of small fluffy things spilled out the open door, pooling around his feet. Inside there was simply a mountain of the things, vibrating and cooing and trilling so loudly you could hardly hear yourself thing. They were piled up so high that they covered the berth and the figure on it - it took Ratchet a moment to recognize Drift's prone form, his optics offline.

"Drift!" He shouted, diving into the pulsating mass of fluff. The little things squealed and shrieked, wiggling out of his way. He swept them off of Drift's body, knocking them to the floor. "Drift!" He said, shaking him by the shoulders. He reached for his mediviewer to get a reading.

Drift's optics onlined sleepily and he made a confused hum. "Ratchet?" He said, frowning. "What are you doing?"

"Saving you from being buried alive," Ratchet said grimly, looking around the room at the shrieking mass of floofs. They'd have to make a break for it.

"Ratchet!" Drift said, reaching to take him by the arm. "They're not dangerous. They're my floofs. I raise them for the pet market."

"Then why were they burying you alive in your sleep?" Ratchet said, looking around. The squealing was quieting down and calming back into hooting trills.

"By nature these little guys reproduce by fission," Drift said, picking up one of the floofs and petting it. "They're banned on a lot of planets because they can reproduce so rapidly they exhaust the food supplies. But it turns out naturally occurring spark radiation alters their DNA so they don't split, making them salable as pets. I am the _only_ vendor of sterile floofs, I'm making a killing on these little guys."

"So you were irradiating them?" Ratchet asked, watching the tiny fluffball in Drift's hand vibrate in happiness.

"Exactly," Drift said. "Also, the vibrations are very relaxing." He looked up from his fluffball. "So why are you here, Ratchet?"

"I wanted to see if you wanted to come home. I mean, back to the Lost Light."

"I dunno," Drift said, looking at the ground. "I'm doing pretty well for myself here. No danger. Easy work, very relaxing. Fulfilling. Nobody tries to murder you, there are no space adventures..." he looked up, grinning. "I'm messing with you, Ratch. I can go home?"

"Yeah, kid. They're waiting for you," he put his hand on Drift's shoulder. After a beat, he added, "but you absolutely _may not_ bring all of these little monsters with you."

Drift pouted. "Okay, I'll let most of them go. How many can I keep? Three hundred?"

"What about three?"

"One hundred?"

 

* * *

 

Ratchet leaned back in the pilot's seat, watching the stars skid by as they warped along. Drift leaned his head in, "Hey, I'm going to recharge now. Are you still hoping to stop on Myxiven IIX for the medical conference, next star system?"

"Yeah, I was hoping to. It'll give us a chance to refuel," Ratchet said. "And maybe you can get rid of more of your little monsters."

"How dare you," Drift said, laughing. "I'll try. We're down to three hundred and seventeen, so it's going pretty good. There's a limited number you can disperse on any one planet. Are you sure you don't want one, Ratch? They grow on you, they really do."

"I don't need _more_ things to worry about and take care of. You're more than enough trouble all on your own," Ratchet said, waving him off. Drift rolled his optics and wandered back into the hallway. Ratchet tilted his head, waiting until he heard the berthroom door slide closed behind him.

Then he opened up his hip compartment and fetched Furball out. She trilled happily as he set her on top of the dashboard and dug around for her favorite food - mass produced breakfast cereal. She was growing fast, she'd started out barely as big as the tip of Ratchet's finger. That was the nice thing about irradiated 'tribblarium multiplico', the official name for the little beasts. Since they didn't divide, they could grow to be a size where a Cybertronian could pick one up without worrying about squishing it.

"You can't just open your spark up to anyone," he said to the little thing, petting it with a finger as it chomped happily on the handful of cereal. "You've gotta wait for the right one."

Furball cooed in agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! This wasn't edited, so if you saw a mistake feel free to let me know. I'm over on tumblr at [ notwhelmedyet](http://notwhelmedyet.tumblr.com/).


End file.
